That Split Second Where You Can’t Do Anything

I’m not having much luck in the ‘dropping technology’ department this month. Earlier in the month I was getting off the bus, I had my earphones in and my phone in my (shallow) pocket. I thought it would be ok, every other time it has been ok but unfortunately, not this time. The bus had a higher drop than I expected and I ended up awkwardly doing a step jump combo to get off which (somehow) ended up with my arm getting caught in the cable of my earphones and instead of them being yanked out of my ears, my phone was lifted out of my pocket and then, being too heavy, disconnected from the cable and fell, splat, face down, onto the concrete below.

I didn’t even know what had happened, one second I was the awkward weirdo falling out of the bus and the next my phone was on the ground.

All I could do was hope that it would be ok. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The top half of the screen was a myriad of cracks which extended out to the lower half of the phone. Obviously, this is a fairly common occurrence but, not for me. I’ve dropped my phone(s) a handle of times over the 5 years I’ve used a smart phone but never damaged it to the extent that I felt like I didn’t want to use it. I honestly have no idea how people go around for weeks (or months) using a cracked screen. It took me 1.5 hrs to go and start sourcing a replacement screen and in that time I had to have my phone face down because I couldn’t bare to look at it. All very melodramatic I know.

I was quoted $200 to get it fixed and had to think about whether it was worth it (I have a Nexus 5, it’s only worth about $450 but I can’t buy another one and I don’t want anything else right now) and after googling how to repair a Nexus 5 screen I decided it was. For those that are wondering, they take off the back of the phone, pull out basically everything and then put that all into a new cover. That was just far too scary a prospect for me. I decided to get it replaced 3 days after it happened and that was too long as far as I was concerned!

I had hoped that would be the end of my dropping/falling technology for a while but this morning my iPad (an old iPad 3) decided to take a tumble down the stairs. I had a bunch of sheets in one arm and my ipad in the other and it slipped out of my fingers and went rolling down the stairs.. in that moment all I could do was watch it go and hope it would survive. I was mostly scared it would get all the way to the bottom and faceplant itself onto the tiles below but, after hitting a wall (and putting a hole in it!) it finally finished its journey and… it was perfectly ok. I’m pretty surprised. A lot surprised actually.. I definitely thought it would have been scratched where it hit the wall.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my iPad is indestructible.. I’ve owned it for 3 years now (I won it in a competition and nearly considered selling it because.. who wants an iPad.. psh, Apple.) and in that time it’s moved 3 houses with me, slid off my couch, my bed and any other surface you can think of. I’ve stepped and sat on it and, other than being a bit dirty and covered in fingerprints it is essentially in the condition I bought it. It is even dealing with running iOS 9 fairly well.

Obviously, now that I’ve said all this, I will have jinxed myself completely.

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6 thoughts on “That Split Second Where You Can’t Do Anything”

I’ve had fairly good luck with technology and breaking; I’ve never dropped my phone so that it broke, my Nexus 7 is still more or less flawless (not even any surface scratches really) and my kindle I /did/ drop, but how it’s made it didn’t break, the back just popped off a bit and it was fine when I pushed it back in.

I’m sorry to hear about your phone, and I think this is why I use older models: a) I can’t afford something more expensive, and b) I know if I did I’d probably break it. I want to replace my Windows phone because it’s… not what I expected, but that’ll happen eventually.

Ay that’s one too many drops with technology! X-/ I have butterfingers as well and I’ve dropped my 5s face down on the floor many many times, fortunately, because I’m short, my phone didn’t pick enough speed to crash terribly.

I can’t recall all the time when I dropped my phone and nothing happened. Thank god for a great case that I have on it :D Still, like you it scares the living crap out of me that it would be damaged, still I think you made the right call(see what I did there?) to get a new phone instead of replacing the screen. That’s ridiculous pricing just to fix a screen.

ouch. I know how it feels. I mean, I am a careless person myself, but I spent my saving to buy a Note3 and I spent an extra cash to get proper casing and screen cover because I don’t want it to “get hurt” easily. Hoever I have a friend who owns a Note3 as well and we bought it almost the same time and she cracked hers recently. I might be overreacting but our friends thought that it was MY phone who cracked, by the way I reacted to it when she showed me her phone.

I hope you get back your nexus after the repair, and wow… it is not the first time i heard story of an ipad surviving a hard fall XD compared to iphone, I think the ipad is stronger in terms of built haha~